SOCIAL SECURITY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 June 1939, Page 7

SOCIAL SECURITY

MINISTER CRITICISES MEDICAL MEN FULL BENEFITS TO BE MADE AVAILABLE. HOPES OF OVERCOMING "HITCH.” (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “Full benefits of the Social Security Act are not available to the people of New Zealand, not because the Government has failed to provide them but because those who can give the seivice have failed to give it,” said tlje Minister of Health, Mr Fraser, during the debate on the Imprest Supply Bill in the House of Representatives yesterday. Good progress was being made said Mr Fraser, and with what had been accomplished he was very satisfied. He doubted if. there was now any great difficulty in the way of the doctors signing the full contract. Replying to a statement of the Leader of .the Opposition, Mr Hamilton, that industrial unions were flouting the lav/ of the country, Mr Fraser said that they, like the doctors, would have to obey the law. The social security legislation was not unmovable, and had never been intended to be so. It was new legislation for New Zealand and was capable of adjustment. The law, however, would have to be obeyed. Mr Hamilton: “They are defying it.” “Defiance lasts but a little time,” said Mr Fraser. “I hope that very soon the full benefits of the legislation will be available to the mothers of the country. It is wrong to say that nothing has been provided for the amounts paid in. Already the private maternity hospitals have received 822 patients for which they have received more than £7OOO, the hospital boards have treated 489 patients for which they have received £3756, and obstetric nurses have attended 78 cases and have been paid £646. More than 1400 mothers have received assistance from the Social Security .Fund in the last few weeks. The 30 doctors who had signed the maternity contract had cared for a very large number of cases, said Mr Fraser. Up to June 26, more than 400 certificates had been received from the 30 doctors who had signed. The number of births was about 2000 a month, and the number of doctors who had signed was about 5 per cent of the profession. The fact therefore that they had attended about 400 out of 2000 births showed that they were giving a very considerable measure of service. The other services provided for in the Act were not yet available because those who could give them had failed so far to do so. The people were getting some of the benefits, but not the full benefits that were lying waiting for them.

There had been no undue delay on the part of the Government in bringing the full scheme into operation, said the Minister. It had been made clear when the Bill was first brought before the House that the benefits would take some time to arrange, specially the medical benefits. The regulations had been gazetted as rapidly as possible, and now the. only hitch was the disagreement between the doctors and the Government, a disagreement which was not really serious, and which would, he honed, be overcome soon.